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Monday, October 26, 2009

First, I know the above title doesn't fit on one line and looks like crap. I don't care. The fact that it doesn't fit almost makes more sense.

As I'm sure you know, Facebook rolled out some more (pretty minor) changes to their layout this week. Not surprisingly, users immediately freaked out.

I don't envy the position that Facebook is in. When they make changes, they know there will be backlash. When the "New" Facebook is "New" everyone hates it. When that version is replaced and becomes the "Old" Facebook, everyone wants it back.

Ultimately, people hate change. Hate it. They hate something when it's new. Eventually, they will forget that they hated it. It becomes a part of their daily ritual. They then accept it without knowing it. Then it's taken away, and they now love what they formerly hated, thus starting the cycle over again with something new to hate.

And they hate it more when you change something they are obsessed with. So the fact that people freak out about the changes (no matter how minor) is simply a reflection of the general population's obsession with the website.

Of course, this isn't the first time Facebook changed from "old" to "new." We've heard people complaining about wanting their "old Facebook" back through about five or six changes during the past couple of years now. While you can't expect every detail from every change to be a success, there comes a point when you have to accept that people are going to freak no matter what Facebook does -- no matter how obviously positive the change.

What's particularly fun to observe is the lengths to which people will go (or methods they will use) to express their outrage. Stop using Facebook? In most cases, nuh uh. Instead, they create or join a Facebook group or page in "protest."

Below is a list of some of the more popular of these groups I found simply by searching "old Facebook" and "new Facebook" in the Facebook search:

MILLIONS AGAINST FACEBOOK's NEW LAYOUT & TERMS OF SERVICE (2,476,721 members)
We Hate The New Facebook, so STOP CHANGING IT!!! (1,623,624 members)
MEMBERS WANT THE OLD FACEBOOK BACK & OUR VOICES MATTER! (821,347 members)
1,000,000 AGAINST THE NEW FACEBOOK LOOK!!! (653,920 members)
People Against The New Facebook System (237,894 members)
Save the old version of facebook! (197,595 members)
NECEMO NOVI FACEBOOK !!! WE DON'T WANT NEW FACEBOOK !!! (151,573 members)
i HATE THE NEW FACEBOOK! (138,725 members)
WE, THE MEMBERS, WANT THE OLD FACEBOOK BACK! (124,326 members)
we hate the new facebook !!! (101,843 members)
WE HATE THE NEW FACEBOOK UPDATE!!!!! FIX IT. (105,044 members)
HIJRAH KE 'FACEBOOK NEW LAYOUT' NOW! (97,746 members)
WE WANT THE OLD FACEBOOK BACK! Chceme zpátky starej facebook! (95,864 members)
I Hate The New Facebook (95,355 members)
Go Back to OLD Facebook/ Keep OLD Facebook INVITE ALL (82,934 members)
GET YOUR OLD FACEBOOK BACK! JOIN NOW! (73,742 members)
1 MILLION AGAINST THE NEW FACEBOOK LOOK!!! (70,535 members)
I hate the new facebook (69,287 members)
We Hate The New Facebook Design!!! (64,771 members)
Petition against the new Facebook Homepage (64,211 members)
2,000,000 AGAINST THE NEW FACEBOOK LAYOUT! (62,803 members)
The New Facebook Layout Sucks! (52,025 members)
Petition to Keep Old Facebook an Option (50,585 members)
Get rid of this stupid new facebook!!!!!!!!!!! (50,411 members)
WE WANT THE OLD FACEBOOK TO STAY (46,103 members)
KEEP THE OLD FACEBOOK LAY OUT!!!!!!!! (40,347 members)
---WE WANT BACK THE OLD FACEBOOK--- (35,737 members)
We Want The Old Facebook Back (35,700 members)
We dont like the new Facebook, CHANGE IT BACK ! (33,843 members)
WE WANT THE OLD FACEBOOK BACK (28,353 members)
We were used to use the old facebook (16,448 members)

So assuming no overlap (not a good assumption, I know), there are roughly 8,000,000 people (captured in the group above, at least) who have joined a group protesting changes to Facebook at some time or another.

Am I the only one who thinks this is absurd? If you don't like Facebook so much that you're inspired to "protest," simply stop using Facebook. If the changes are that terrible, affect use of the site that negatively, membership will suddenly stall and people will find an alternative.

Of course, Facebook growth continues to skyrocket (latest numbers point to over 300,000,000 global users). And it's highly unlikely that the latest changes will do much to curb the upward momentum.

The irony, of course, is that many (or possibly all) of these groups were created in protest of prior changes. For example, "They took birthdays and who my friends became friends of out of my feed!" was a common complaint in an earlier change this year. It was a change noted in complaint groups. That, of course, has been reversed in the latest change.

But people want their "old" Facebook back. And yet, you complained about the last "new" Facebook that was an "old" Facebook, too. Which was also a prior beloved "old" Facebook, and so on. Facebook has been changed many times over now. And each time you complain about it. Yet, you're still here. Complaining.

To me, joining or creating a Facebook group to protest Facebook is akin to joining the army to protest war. Probably a bad analogy, but I'm open to better ones.

Granted, Facebook will be made aware of your complaints this way. I get it. But still. If you are as passionate about the changes being made as you say you are, why keep using the site? Joining or creating a group in protest is somewhat counterproductive. You're clearly still using the site, so the changes haven't disrupted your activity.

If you are a Facebook user, subscribing to the Facebook Blog is a must. Become a fan. When changes are made, explanations go into your feed -- of course, unless you hide those messages. Good to be educated and informed.

News Feed
When you log into Facebook, you'll see the most interesting things that happened in the last day in the "News Feed" view. News Feed picks stories that we think you'll enjoy based on a variety of factors including how many friends have liked and commented on it and how likely you are to interact with that story.

Live Feed
Once you've caught up on what you missed, you can click through to "Live Feed" to see what's happening right now. As long as you remain logged into Facebook, you'll continue to see posts and activity from your friends in real-time. You can edit what appears in this view by clicking "Edit Options" at the bottom of the home page.

Nothing out of the ordinary to me. To be honest, there were some things that were lost in recent iterations that I wanted back (though I didn't protest). More than anything, this latest change seems to revert back to much of what the "old" Facebook (that everyone loved, at least when it was replaced) offered.

Do the changes make Facebook more useful? Ultimately, that's the question that needs to be asked to determine if they were worthwhile. Personally, I think they were. I can provide an example of the changes' usefulness from this past week. My family went on vacation, and I could not be as active on Facebook as I have been previously. I could not read every update. But I found some very interesting stuff that I commented on in my News Feed that I otherwise would not have read.

Could their algorithm be altered to better capture what will be interesting to me? Possibly. But I see it as an improvement.

Anyway, here is an excerpt explaining why they made the changes:

Why We Made Changes
This past March, we introduced a real-time feed in the central column of your home page so you could see everything your friends were sharing as soon as they shared it. We also included a Highlights section on the right-hand side so you could see the most interesting activity going on in your network.

While seeing real-time activities is extremely valuable, we also want to be sure you don't miss other interesting content. After hearing feedback from many of you and exploring some new designs, we decided with today's changes to move what you used to see in Highlights from the right-hand side to the News Feed view in the main column so you can more easily engage with both views.

We also added information back to News Feed that many of you have asked for, including when your friends have been tagged in photos or have become fans of Pages, in addition to when they RSVP for events or join groups and make new friends. We also made birthdays and events more visible in the right column of the home page.

The one change they don't note here is that they limit the number of friends that appear in your feed to 250. Not sure why, but assume it has something to do with load on their servers or belief that people don't like being overwhelmed by too much info in their feeds. You can actually edit this by going to the bottom of the page, clicking "Edit Options," and editing the "Maximum number of friends shown in Live Feed."

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About Me

Jon Loomer
Nerd

Husband and father of three sons, including a cancer survivor. Philosophy major turned insurance underwriter turned professional fantasy sports geek with the NBA turned consultant turned cancer fighter in the non-profit world.